The warning False Teachers

Jude verses 8-13

Jude wanted to share the good news of our common salvation, that God so loves us that He gave, the most precious gift to buy us out of sin’s control, but he, like the apostle Peter, had to address the false teachers who Jude tells us have crept in the church unnoticed.  So if they came in unnoticed, how can we expose these false teachers?  Jude tells us they will lead us away from the Scriptures and begin to share their dreams, and who arrogantly committed sexual immorality and rebelled against authority.   Jude also states that they blaspheme glorious ones, referring to the angels.  At this point Jude reminds us of Michael the archangel and his disputing with the devil in a debate about Moses body.   It matters not what the devil said, Michael’s reply was “The Lord rebukes you!”  But Jude tells us these false teachers blaspheme anything they do not understand, they are under the control of their feelings, and are quick to judge and condemn, and Jude compares them to unreasoning animals – they destroy themselves. 

Verse eleven states, “Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.”  We must look into these three men, what is the common thread that ties them to false teachers?  We will find Cain’s account in Genesis 4:4-5, 8,9, and you remember Cain and his brother Abel, and how they both brought an offering to the Lord and Abel’s was pleasing to the Lord, and Cain’s was not.  You can read in verse eight how Cain conned his brother in the field and killed him, and then the Lord came and ask where is your brother, and Cain’s reply, “I don’t know,” he replied.  “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Now Balaam is not a name we talk about, so who is he?  We have this account from the book of Numbers 31:16, “Yet they are the ones who, at Balaam’s advice, incited the Israelites to unfaithfulness against the Lord in Peor incident, so that the plague came against the Lord’s community.”   And what was Korah’s rebellion, and who was Korah, a Levite from the Kohathite clan who wanted a higher position?  Korah and 250 prominent Israelite men who were leaders of the community and representative in the assembly, and they rebelled against Moses and Aaron.  And they accused Moses and Aaron of exalting themselves over the assembly.  We know that Moses told the community what God was going to do to these unfaithful people and it happened just as Moses stated.  You may read this account in Numbers 16:1-35.  So what did these men have in common with the false teachers, they were known for their hatred, greed, and rebellion?

Jude gives us this picture of these false teachers in verses 12-13, “These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

James Moss who was one of our pastors in Spring, Texas, would often say, “do not trust any man” but make sure you put your trust in God alone.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice